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#HillarysBodyDouble Is Weird And Trending
On Monday morning, sleuths on Twitter came up with a pretty bizarre conspiracy theory: Hillary Clinton supposedly used a body double on Sunday. The hashtag #HillarysBodyDouble dominated Twitter a day after the Democratic nominee's health issues was heavily focused on in news coverage on 9/11. Video footage and photographs captured Clinton stumbling and needing support from her security as she entered a van, leaving a Sept. 11 memorial service on Sunday. Primary reports stated that Clinton was overheated, with her campaign later revealing that she was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday.
Clinton's schedule for Monday and Tuesday has been cleared; her campaign fundraising trip to California has also been canceled in order for her to rest and recover. Right after the incident, Clinton was seen being taken to her daughter Chelsea's apartment in Manhattan. After about an hour and a half, Clinton was seen leaving the apartment, looking pretty well-rested.
But for online sleuths on Twitter, that well-rested meant only one thing — Clinton used a body double, claiming how it was odd she wasn't surrounded by the Secret Service to protect her in case she happened to stumble again. There have already been conspiracy theories around Clinton's health, propped up by the GOP that read as both vague and bizarre, but this latest one trumps (ha!) that. Here are some of the absurd tweets currently going viral:
Many of the tweets around this conspiracy focus a lot on her appearance — calling her legs too skinny, her forefinger too short, her earlobe chunkier and her nose less defined.
Reddit, too, has hopped on to the bandwagon, with an intense discussion between users debating the differences in her appearance, going into the details with one user commenting, "the doubles' nose seems to droop down at the end where Hillary nose seems to pop up a little," while another paid close attention to her mannerisms — "Hillary Clinton carries her purses, and other things on her left hand, or left shoulder. The body double f***ed up, and carried her purse on her right shoulder." Skeptics are clearly digging into the most minute of details. But a side-by-side image of Clinton with her supposed "body double" has taken the theory up a notch:
In July, the Daily Mail reported that Teresa Barnwell, 61, earns thousands of dollars monthly for impersonating the Democratic nominee. She allegedly quit her job and has been a full-time Clinton impersonator for over 20 years, according to the Daily Mail.
Whether there's any merit to this theory is dubious at best, but if this hashtag continues trending and with the presidential debates coming up, Clinton might have two mounting conspiracies to debunk.